Laptop to play mine craft

Strongbow10

just making a very general query, I'm looking to buy my nephew a laptop for Xmas, not spending a fortune so looking for a budget option.

Basically, he likes to play mine craft, watch YouTube, surf the net etc.....

Can anyone give me the lowdown on the Dell Inspiron 15? It's priced at €249 at the minute

Anything else in the price range up to €300 would be great

Thanks a million in advance

solomafioso

Here's the system requirements for Minecraft.

https://help.mojang.com/customer/portal/articles/325948-minecraft-system-requirements

Minecraft system requirements
Last Updated: Jul 22, 2014 09:09PM CEST
This information has been compiled by the Minecraft community on the Minecraft wiki. Please visit the Hardware Performance wiki page for the most up to date information, or to compare your computer's hardware and software with other users' computers listed as being able to play the game.

A computer with the minimum requirements should be able to play Minecraft. However, for the best experience, please consider the recommended requirements.


Minimum Requirements:
CPU: Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 (K8) 2.6 GHz
RAM: 2GB
GPU (Integrated): Intel HD Graphics or AMD (formerly ATI) Radeon HD Graphics with OpenGL 2.1
GPU (Discrete): Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT or AMD Radeon HD 2400 with OpenGL 3.1
HDD: At least 200MB for Game Core and Other Files
Java 6 Release 45

Recommended Requirements:
CPU: Intel Core i3 or AMD Athlon II (K10) 2.8 GHz
RAM: 4GB
GPU: GeForce 2xx Series or AMD Radeon HD 5xxx Series (Excluding Integrated Chipsets) with OpenGL 3.3
HDD: 1GB
Latest release of Java 7 from java.com

Software Requirements:
Minecraft Release 1.6 or newer. Older versions will need to be updated to current versions
Please note that some users experience issues playing Minecraft while using a mismatched version of Java for their operating system (32 or 64 bit), while using certain versions of Java 7, or while multiple versions of Java are installed


If you have a laptop with an a built-in (integrated) graphics card, rather than a dedicated card, it is highly suggested that you try the demo before purchase.

A stable internet connection is required for Minecraft to download game files, authenticate usernames, and connect to multiplayer servers. You'll need to download and run Minecraft while connected to the internet at least once; afterwards, you can play without an internet connection, but will need to connect if you'd like to receive updates or play online.

Minecraft will not run on a toaster (despite some actually using Java), your car (feel free to prove us wrong, though), or a Chromebook.

Information on system requirements for running a Minecraft server can be found on the Minecraft wiki.

Strongbow10

Thanks a million for taking the time to reply to me.

The below is like reading a foreign language to me, apologies for asking but going from the below can minecraft be manageable comfortably on the Inspiron 15?

http://www.dell.com/ie/p/inspiron-15-3531-laptop/pd?oc=cn53105

solomafioso wrote: »

Here's the system requirements for Minecraft.

https://help.mojang.com/customer/portal/articles/325948-minecraft-system-requirements

solomafioso

Strongbow10 wrote: »

Thanks a million for taking the time to reply to me.

The below is like reading a foreign language to me, apologies for asking but going from the below can minecraft be manageable comfortably on the Inspiron 15?

http://www.dell.com/ie/p/inspiron-15-3531-laptop/pd?oc=cn53105

I don't think it will run Minecraft as the processor in the Inspiron is below specifications. The built-in graphics wouldn't suffice either.

http://ark.intel.com/products/81071/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N2830-1M-Cache-up-to-2_41-GHz

It does have 4GB of RAM (memory) though.

As an aside if you are getting a laptop for your nephew, ensure it's "childproof". Install anti-virus, and a website monitor / blocker. The net is a dangerous place for a novice, especially when it comes to the "too good to be true" links. That is, ads offering free games and before you know it it's riddled with mal and spyware.

Strongbow10

solomafioso wrote: »

I don't think it will run Minecraft as the processor in the Inspiron is below specifications. The built-in graphics wouldn't suffice either.

http://ark.intel.com/products/81071/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N2830-1M-Cache-up-to-2_41-GHz

It does have 4GB of RAM (memory) though.

As an aside if you are getting a laptop for your nephew, ensure it's "childproof". Install anti-virus, and a website monitor / blocker. The net is a dangerous place for a novice, especially when it comes to the "too good to be true" links. That is, ads offering free games and before you know it it's riddled with mal and spyware.

Would you have any recommendations for a laptop within my budget of €300?

Once again, thanks a million for your info

looking_around

Strongbow10 wrote: »

Would you have any recommendations for a laptop within my budget of €300?

Once again, thanks a million for your info

if you want it play minecraft, you may want to consider 2nd hand or refurbs. Or, a desktop? those the kid really need a laptop? desktops for the same specs, are cheaper. So you could get a bit better, with the same budget.

This should play it, it's onboard graphics card, so it won't be great though.
http://www.refreshedbyus.com/dell-latitude-e6410-2-4-laptop-b


Basically when looking at laptops, what you need to do, is check "specifications".
And then look for the following words and numbers and see if they are equal to or greater than:. You just need to see if they match or are higher.

RAM (memory): 2GB

CPU: Intel pentium D or I3 or I5 or AMD Radeon HD Graphics. and also, you'll see another number with Ghz. you want 2.6Ghz or higher

GPU(Graphics card, or video card): Most laptops in your budget won't have a dedicated one. So they'll say "onboard or integrated".
If they do have one, you want to see GeForce 200+ Series or AMD Radeon HD 5000+ Series. Or cards numbered Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT or AMD Radeon HD 2400. or even Intel HD graphics, should handle it.
What's underline, is basically you'll see one of the underlineds beside GPU when looking at specs.

Write the list down on paper so it's easy to glance at while you're searching.

Tails142

As mentioned for playing games on a laptop the key thing is to have a decicated gpu or graphics card as opposed to onboard or integrated.

It will be hard to find a cheap laptop with that unfortunately. A cheap pc however would be easier to find with it.

looking_around

there's another advantage to going for a desktop. You could upgrade it's parts as future christmas presents .. much cheaper than going for new laptop couple years down the road.

TerrorFirmer

A lot of nonsense flying around here.

The laptop you originally linked will play Minecraft. At low settings but it will run it.

You don't need a clockspeed of 2.6Ghz or anywhere close, it depends on the processor. A 1.6Ghz i3 would play it effortlessly for example, far faster than a 2.4Ghz Atom based processor would (the Inspiron 15 is atom based).

No need for dedicated graphics. Intel's latest gen integrated graphics are better than AMD/Nvidia low-end dedicated cards so ignore that as well.

http://www.refreshedbyus.com/dell-latitude-e6410-2-4-laptop-b

Not a good buy at all. First gen i5, nowhere near as fast as current or last gen i5's. It's several years old.

Look at upping the budget to around 350 at least.

For example Dell offer the Inspiron with a faster Pentium 3558U Processor for 329. Or i3 for 379.

Or else as mentioned just build a desktop, for 300 you can get one that'll run Minecraft at high no problem

Strongbow10

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

A lot of nonsense flying around here.

The laptop you originally linked will play Minecraft. At low settings but it will run it.

You don't need a clockspeed of 2.6Ghz or anywhere close, it depends on the processor. A 1.6Ghz i3 would play it effortlessly for example, far faster than a 2.4Ghz Atom based processor would (the Inspiron 15 is atom based).

No need for dedicated graphics. Intel's latest gen integrated graphics are better than AMD/Nvidia low-end dedicated cards so ignore that as well.



Not a good buy at all. First gen i5, nowhere near as fast as current or last gen i5's. It's several years old.

Look at upping the budget to around 350 at least.

For example Dell offer the Inspiron with a faster Pentium 3558U Processor for 329. Or i3 for 379.

Or else as mentioned just build a desktop, for 300 you can get one that'll run Minecraft at high no problem

What laptop would you recommend? the system for €329 from Dell sounds good, is there a link to this?

thanks a million for the reply

looking_around

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Not a good buy at all. First gen i5, nowhere near as fast as current or last gen i5's. It's several years old.

My bad, I had thought it was newer version. (In my defence I'm still recovering from surgery and didn't look all that close to it)
I had linked it because I thought it'do be newer with a decent onboard, thanks for pointing out, that it's not.

Strongbow10

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

A lot of nonsense flying around here.

The laptop you originally linked will play Minecraft. At low settings but it will run it.

You don't need a clockspeed of 2.6Ghz or anywhere close, it depends on the processor. A 1.6Ghz i3 would play it effortlessly for example, far faster than a 2.4Ghz Atom based processor would (the Inspiron 15 is atom based).

No need for dedicated graphics. Intel's latest gen integrated graphics are better than AMD/Nvidia low-end dedicated cards so ignore that as well.



Not a good buy at all. First gen i5, nowhere near as fast as current or last gen i5's. It's several years old.

Look at upping the budget to around 350 at least.

For example Dell offer the Inspiron with a faster Pentium 3558U Processor for 329. Or i3 for 379.

Or else as mentioned just build a desktop, for 300 you can get one that'll run Minecraft at high no problem

is the i3 a suitable system for my requirements you reckon?

Strongbow10

Strongbow10 wrote: »

is the i3 a suitable system for my requirements you reckon?

just a follow up to this, would the i3 be a suitable system to play minecraft?

TerrorFirmer

If its the inspiron i3 on the Dell website for €379, that would play it fine, so would the €329 Pentium.

However if you were spending the €379, I'd prefer this.

€375 delivered and it has a considerably faster processor than either Dell, it's a good laptop for the money.

Strongbow10

Just to clarify, will this laptop be strong enough to run minecraft etc..?

thanks in advance

http://www.dell.com/ie/p/inspiron-15-3542-laptop/pd?ref=PD_OC

thierry14

Strongbow10 wrote: »

Just to clarify, will this laptop be strong enough to run minecraft etc..?

thanks in advance

Don't forget

Dell have 12% off any Alienware, XPS or Inspiron laptop or desktop until Monday

Use this code 8$84w8j58zxdm6 during checkout

I am not sure if that laptop will be strong enough, I am sure someone more knowledgeable than like Terror will answer that for you

ShayC

I'm in the same boat, laptop for minecraft and general use.

12% off on the Dell this weekend so €335

Would the difference between the i3 on the Dell and the i3 on the Lenovo be noticeable?

Strongbow10

ShayC wrote: »

I'm in the same boat, laptop for minecraft and general use.

12% off on the Dell this weekend so €335

Would the difference between the i3 on the Dell and the i3 on the Lenovo be noticeable?

The one I was looking at is the New Inspiron 15 3000 Series Intel® Pentium® Processor (Dual Core)

http://www.dell.com/ie/p/inspiron-15-3542-laptop/pd?oc=cn54223&model_id=inspiron-15-3542-laptop

Its priced at €329

ArnieSilvia

Don't underestimate minecraft for what it needs to run. I have 2 systems at home that my kids took over from me to play minecraft (AMD Phenom x4 955BE and Athlon x2 6000+), one 8GB RAM one 4GB RAM, run good motherboards though, and I would classify them as "good enough" couple years back and no real world difference between them. They were built as "cheap and cheerful" systems with ebay/leftover parts and are still good for everything we need them for. They are running now nearly obsolete Nvidia 9800gt graphics cards. Overall cost to build was in region of 400 euro 4 years ago so now easily half that.

Now if kids go to a busy server with lots of stuff built on it it slows down framerate dramatically. Graphics cards are now 7 years old I think, run very hard and generate lots of heat. Sometimes their rooms are like sauna's due to heat, so this is due an upgrade already. Mind you, we got heaps of gaming from these cards over those 7 or so years so if I buy them graphics cards for Christmas it'll be reasonably cheap upgrade and will keep the rest of hardware going for good few years.

Last system (windows speed index 7.7 out of 7.9) I built for myself on the cheap was:

Processor Intel i7 920
Motherboard ASUS RAMPAGE EXTREME II
6GB RAM
Graphics card Radeon HD5870
the lot above was £190

On top of that:
Fancy case £80
Fancy CPU cooler £50
Fancy SSD £70 (brought the windows index from 5.9 to 7.7 and really makes a difference)
Fancy 27" 144Hz gaming monitor £260
all of which could be substituted on the cheap, say total 350 euro with monitor

I don't think I'd need anything more for my needs in foreseeable future, especially for playing minecraft

ArnieSilvia

May I also add, the desktop helps with good posture if you care about development of your kids' back as they will be spending hours on it you like it or not.

Strongbow10

ArnieSilvia wrote: »

Don't underestimate minecraft for what it needs to run. I have 2 systems at home that my kids took over from me to play minecraft (AMD Phenom x4 955BE and Athlon x2 6000+), one 8GB RAM one 4GB RAM, run good motherboards though, and I would classify them as "good enough" couple years back and no real world difference between them. They were built as "cheap and cheerful" systems with ebay/leftover parts and are still good for everything we need them for. They are running now nearly obsolete Nvidia 9800gt graphics cards. Overall cost to build was in region of 400 euro 4 years ago so now easily half that.

Now if kids go to a busy server with lots of stuff built on it it slows down framerate dramatically. Graphics cards are now 7 years old I think, run very hard and generate lots of heat. Sometimes their rooms are like sauna's due to heat, so this is due an upgrade already. Mind you, we got heaps of gaming from these cards over those 7 or so years so if I buy them graphics cards for Christmas it'll be reasonably cheap upgrade and will keep the rest of hardware going for good few years.

Last system (windows speed index 7.7 out of 7.9) I built for myself on the cheap was:

Processor Intel i7 920
Motherboard ASUS RAMPAGE EXTREME II
6GB RAM
Graphics card Radeon HD5870
the lot above was £190

On top of that:
Fancy case £80
Fancy CPU cooler £50
Fancy SSD £70 (brought the windows index from 5.9 to 7.7 and really makes a difference)
Fancy 27" 144Hz gaming monitor £260
all of which could be substituted on the cheap, say total 350 euro with monitor

I don't think I'd need anything more for my needs in foreseeable future, especially for playing minecraft

Would the above system (see the link in my previous post above) be sufficient?

ArnieSilvia

Strongbow10 wrote: »

Would the above system (see the link in my previous post above) be sufficient?

My advice would be to google the following:
AMD Phenom 955 vs (here enter the processor you want to buy)
see what comes up.
For good budget gaming PC you want around same performance as an AMD Phenom 955 or intel i7 920 (first gen of i7), these have proven to work very well in my home use.

and also:

google Nvidia 9800gt vs (enter graphics you're buying). For good budget PC you want around double of 9800gt's performance, should be equivalent to Radeon HD5870. Of course there are better graphics but you wont need it just yet.

4 gig ram should be fine, 8GB RAM is nice to have if cheap.

Finally, as someone pointed out, todays integrated graphics come surprisingly good in tests so I wouldnt exclude them.

I went for dedicated graphics card due to modular and future proof nature of this setup. If I need more graphics power I can run multiple graphics cards on my motherboards, overclock processors, add memory etc. But this comes at price and requires beefy power supply, big case, cooling solutions etc

looking_around

ArnieSilvia wrote: »

My advice would be to google the following:
AMD Phenom 955 vs (here enter the processor you want to buy)
see what comes up.
For good budget gaming PC you want around same performance as an AMD Phenom 955 or intel i7 920 (first gen of i7), these have proven to work very well in my home use.

and also:

google Nvidia 9800gt vs (enter graphics you're buying). For good budget PC you want around double of 9800gt's performance, should be equivalent to Radeon HD5870. Of course there are better graphics but you wont need it just yet.

4 gig ram should be fine, 8GB RAM is nice to have if cheap.

Finally, as someone pointed out, todays integrated graphics come surprisingly good in tests so I wouldnt exclude them.

I went for dedicated graphics card due to modular and future proof nature of this setup. If I need more graphics power I can run multiple graphics cards on my motherboards, overclock processors, add memory etc. But this comes at price and requires beefy power supply, big case, cooling solutions etc

The person doesn't want to build a pc >.>
They want a simple yes or no

@stronghold, yes, it should work, however as another poster explained consider the I3 instead. They even gave a link to another laptop to consider.

The pentium isn't going to get you very far.
Although both laptops will have trouble in busier minecraft servers.

ArnieSilvia

looking_around wrote: »

The person doesn't want to build a pc >.>
They want a simple yes or no

@stronghold, yes, it should work, however as another poster explained consider the I3 instead. They even gave a link to another laptop to consider.

The pentium isn't going to get you very far.
Although both laptops will have trouble in busier minecraft servers.

That's the point I'm trying to make, I know the OP wants a cheap laptop to run minecraft but I also know how baffled I was seeing a reasonably fast PC struggling with this game. And I know that sooner or later OP's kids will try to join "coolest" servers. This game is quite heavy on the equipment, it's 3D graphics after all (no matter how primitive it looks).

The alternative is an android tablet, my kids use that also (Lenovo from Argos 180 euro now is well proven as well) and OP's kids can use that for other android games as well.

looking_around

ArnieSilvia wrote: »

That's the point I'm trying to make, I know the OP wants a cheap laptop to run minecraft but I also know how baffled I was seeing a reasonably fast PC struggling with this game. And I know that sooner or later OP's kids will try to join "coolest" servers. This game is quite heavy on the equipment, it's 3D graphics after all (no matter how primitive it looks).

The alternative is an android tablet, my kids use that also (Lenovo from Argos 180 euro now is well proven as well) and OP's kids can use that for other android games as well.

I know, made mention of building a desktop already. they don't want. It's probably a bit of confusing, if they don't have someone to do it for them.

You're right though, a tablet is probably a better idea.