Future of gaming in netbooks
Asus was on to something when they released the N10J-A1 gaming netbook (available at Amazon). It had a dedicated graphics chip, HDMI, and 2GB of RAM. However, some knuckle-headed decisions (i.e. combining Atom and Vista, $699 price tag) made the netbook slightly unattractive.
Netbooks may have raw horsepower like its bigger, stronger laptop cousins, but the idea of putting in a GPU is nothing short of brilliant for the casual, cheapskate gamer.
Enter the Ion, a new platform that bundles Nvidia’s GeForce 9400M GPU, Intel’s Atom CPU, and VIA Technologies’ Pico-ITXe motherboard. Ion-powered gadgets are expected to come out in summer 2009, with the cheapest going as low as $299. This, my friends is the future of netbook gaming.
Let’s just hope that this $299 price is true because the N10J-A1 was a real pain at $699.
According to PC World’s hands-on preview, the Ion ran Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare at a resolution of 1024×768 and cranked out 25 frames per second. Perhaps with some tweaking, like going at lower resolutions and switching off certain details, the game would run at an even better framerate. Ion also ran the trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine at 1080p without a hitch so I’m not complaining.
However, like the N10J-A1, Ion would likely be using Vista, especially since Microsoft “certified” the platform as Vista capable. Nvidia justifies the Vista decision to PC World by saying: “Because we think people deserve a better experience.”
How could a slower machine be a better experience? Maybe the better experience is for Nvidia, with all the rewards they’re getting for ditching XP for Vista.
This trend of putting in GPUs in netbooks is going to continue, and it’s going to sell because people love games. Who knows? Perhaps the netbook revolution might become so popular (since netbooks are so cheap) that game developers might start considering netbook hardware capabilities and make their games more scalable.
After all, you can’t argue with millions of people.
And you know what? These gaming netbooks are going to get even cheaper as time goes by. Remember that tech prices change rapidly in the course of a mere six months, so you can expect even better deals in the future. What’s more, older PC games (you know, the ones that can run on your netbook) get cheaper too. The result: cheapskate gaming heaven on your netbook.
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Filed under: Netbook Thoughts