Touhou and Computer Specs

[eternal]

I have a few questions about the requirements to play these games lag-free. First of all, I'm definitely not very experienced with computers, so pardon me if I make any beginner's mistakes.

So far I've been playing Touhou on my laptop, which has a Core 2 Duo processor (T5300), and my video card is from the "Mobile Intel 945 Express Chipset Family". I'm pretty sure this is built in and can't be changed. For the most part, the games have run fine for me, but I've been noticing some lag with the latest games. I tried playing SA on Extra and saved a replay after dying half way through Koishi, and there was a bit of slowdown recorded. I've also been feeling some slowdown while playing, and what's-her-name's anchors in UFO Stage 4 have been lagging a bit as well.

My questions are:

- What has more of an impact on slowdown in bullet hell games, the processor or the video card? Or something completely different?

- What kind of specs are required to play the latest games on Lunatic and save a replay with no recorded lag? I know that some lag is inevitable, but most of the replays I downloaded to help me practice are reading 0.0%. Is my current computer really biting off more than it can chew, or would (theoretically, because it's a laptop) a small upgrade be enough to play lag-free?

[Momiji]

The Windows Touhou games actually do need some hardware 3d graphics acceleration, for the backgrounds and texture effects (SA, UFO, and the fighting games especially).  Your laptop's graphics chip doesn't have any sort of real 3d graphics processing capability, so you'll be sure to have some issues.

Any current 3d graphics chip will probably suffice, most are at least DirectX 9/10 compatible.  Unfortunately you can't upgrade the graphics chip in a laptop, so you'll probably need a new machine.

As for recording replays goes, you're running Touhou game that's already being bottlenecked by your graphics chip, and trying to capture it and compress the resulting video at the same time (probably maxing out your CPU), so you're asking for problems.

Oh yeah, her name's Minamitsu Murasa.

[Barrakketh]

The Windows Touhou games actually do need some hardware 3d graphics acceleration, for the backgrounds and texture effects (SA, UFO, and the fighting games especially).  Your laptop's graphics chip doesn't have any sort of real 3d graphics processing capability, so you'll be sure to have some issues.

Any current 3d graphics chip will probably suffice, most are at least DirectX 9/10 compatible.  Unfortunately you can't upgrade the graphics chip in a laptop, so you'll probably need a new machine.

The 945 lacks hardware transform and lighting and has gimped vertex shaders that requires some assistance from the drivers to optimize what is sent to the GPU.  Even though hardware transform and lighting was standard on desktop GPUs in 2001 (was introduced in 1999) they still didn't include it in a laptop chipset that was introduced in 2006...way to go, Intel :yukkuri:

As for recording replays goes, you're running Touhou game that's already being bottlenecked by your graphics chip, and trying to capture it and compress the resulting video at the same time (probably maxing out your CPU), so you're asking for problems.

I'd be more worried about the hard drive...most laptop drives aren't exactly designed for performance.

Oh yeah, her name's Minamitsu Murasa.

*cough* Captain *cough*

[orinrin]

Running a game =/= Running a game smoothly.

[eternal]

I see. Thanks for the input. I guess I'll have to look for a new machine sooner than I thought.

[Ghaleon]

I see. Thanks for the input. I guess I'll have to look for a new machine sooner than I thought.

splurge on the mobo, It's what gives you upgrading potential, and often is not all that expensive from low end to high end compared to the other major computer components.

    Oh yeah, her name's Minamitsu Murasa.

*cough* Captain *cough*

You mean Captain *censored* Murasa.