Solved! Laptop Gaming, will more RAM help?

[jmsellars1]

Hi guys,

Bought a Samsung NF110 Netbook recently because i got a really good deal on it. Obviously it's not for gaming but i would like to play a few games on it, i'm thinking older games like Sim City 3000, Starcraft, Diablo II, Age of Empires II and Minecraft. Up to now i've tried Sim City and Minecraft, Sim City seems to run ok but Minecraft is just unplayable even on the lowest settings. Does anyone have any ideas on improving performance? Will this RAM upgrade do the job or do we think the CPU or graphics arent up to the job?

Thanks in advance

EDIT: Also, does anyone have any ideas on some other games that will run on it? (Lowest settings and playable FPS is fine.)

 

[AntiZig]

anything that came out before 2001 should be able to run.

the GPU is just very very weak. http/www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Graphics-Media-Accelerator-3150.23264.0.html
384 Mb SHARED memory

The ram upgrade you posted is not compatible with your system
Your motherboard only supports DDR2 at 667Mhz.

Here's your upgrade options for CPU:
http/ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=49490,49492,49491,
as you can see, there's nothing that is significantly better.

I'm not sure if you can get a dedicated GPU that would fit...

So conclusion is, modern games are out of the question for you with this machine.

 

[flashfir]

If you understand graphics it is almost always the integrated graphics that bottleneck on laptops. Ram will help if your system is bottlenecked there, which it isn't.

 

[jmsellars1]

I googled Samsung NF110 RAM upgrade and the stuff that came up were 204 Pin SODIMM 1x2GB 1066Mhz DDR3 Modules. Which source tells you that it is DDR2?

Also, i tried Diablo 2 and it is barely playable, i did spend a while on it but it was pretty laggy. I guess it seems like the graphics are bottlenecking. Does anyone know of any ways to improve laptop graphics? Designating more memory perhaps?

P.S. Theres no way a dedicated GPU is going to fit, this thing is pretty tiny and was pretty cheap so i'm not surprised it can't handle these games to be honest.

 

[lostandwandering]

I googled Samsung NF110 RAM upgrade and the stuff that came up were 204 Pin SODIMM 1x2GB 1066Mhz DDR3 Modules. Which source tells you that it is DDR2?

Also, i tried Diablo 2 and it is barely playable, i did spend a while on it but it was pretty laggy. I guess it seems like the graphics are bottlenecking. Does anyone know of any ways to improve laptop graphics? Designating more memory perhaps?

P.S. Theres no way a dedicated GPU is going to fit, this thing is pretty tiny and was pretty cheap so i'm not surprised it can't handle these games to be honest.

1. Samsung's website lists it as DDR3.

2. Netbooks were never really designed to play games. Atom CPUs when combined with Intel's IGP just are not powerful enough to handle it. If you had gotten a netbook with NVidia's ION 2 then gaming would have been possible. The other option would have been one of AMD's dual core fusion APUs.

3. Definitely not upgradeable. No open express slots that I know of and the case is not designed to handle the extra heat.

 

[AntiZig]

Samsung's website lists the motherboard model, going by the motherboard specs, it only supports DDR2. Unless I got the wrong model on the Samsung website...

 

[lostandwandering]

Samsung's website lists the motherboard model, going by the motherboard specs, it only supports DDR2. Unless I got the wrong model on the Samsung website...

The Tech Specs for the NF110 on Samsung's website list the laptop coming with 1GB (DDR3/ 1gb x1)
http/www.samsung.com/ie/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/netbook/NP-NF110-A01UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=specification

Easiest way to solve this: Download CPU-z and see what it say under memory.

 

[jmsellars1]

Yeah i realise that these aren't built for gaming, just wanted to see what would work. Thanks for the insight guys.

 

[AntiZig]

The Tech Specs for the NF110 on Samsung's website list the laptop coming with 1GB (DDR3/ 1gb x1)
http/www.samsung.com/ie/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/netbook/NP-NF110-A01UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=specification

Easiest way to solve this: Download CPU-z and see what it say under memory.

that's just what samsung wrote, did you actually look up the motherboard model that they specify there? according to intel that mobo only supports DDR2.
http/www.intel.com/Assets/image/diagram/NM10_Block-Diagram.gif

I mean if you can find the fact that it supports DDR3 in this document please point it out for me:
http/www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/322896.pdf

 

[lostandwandering]

that's just what samsung wrote, did you actually look up the motherboard model that they specify there? according to intel that mobo only supports DDR2.
http/www.intel.com/Assets/image/diagram/NM10_Block-Diagram.gif

I mean if you can find the fact that it supports DDR3 in this document please point it out for me:
http/www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/322896.pdf

I'm going off the fact that every listing I have seen for the laptop, including information from the *manufacturer*, says DDR3. Also, the fact that if you use Crucial's memory advisor it comes up with DDR3 RAM: http/www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=NF110&Cat=RAM

I said earlier, the best way to solve it is for the OP to download CPU-z and see what it reports. The netbook won't lie.

 

[jmsellars1]

lol guys it's not important, don't worry about it.

 

[Shpati]

There is only so much RAM can do. If you have trouble running modern games, it is not your RAM, you have to look at your video card and CPU for that.

 

[lostandwandering]

lol guys it's not important, don't worry about it.

Should you still have a desire to know, download this and you'll know for certain: http/www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html