My brother is currently in the market for a good laptop system to run FS2004, IL-2 Forgotten Battles, the upcoming Pacific Fighters and Silent Hunter III along with standard desktop applications. Can anyone share their experience along with screenshots on either this forum or on the screenshot/picture forum along with frame rates and other problems you may have encountered? Listed below are the current configurations of suggested models in $1,300 to $1,400 range at discounted pricing (regularly $1,500-1,900).Compaq Presario R3000ZAthlon 64 3400+ processor rated at 2.20 GHz512MB DDR SDRAM60GB 4200RPM Hard Drive (No other choice offered)64MB NVIDIA GeoForce 4 440+ Go Graphics (No other choice/problem area)15.4

Take the Dell, in fact nothing is better than this one from them http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspn_xps?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn If you can afford it why not get the best? This will not only play FS great it will fill your other needs for a few years to come ;-)Best Wishes,[h4]Randy J. Smith[/h4]http://www.rawbw.com/~bdoolin/shinault/Animation1.gifCaution! Not a real pilot, but do play one on TV ;-)AMD 64 3200+ | ASUS KV8 DELUXE | GFORCE 5700 ULTRA @535/1000 | Maxtor 6Y080M0 SATA 80 GIG | 512 DDR 400 | Windows Xp Pro | Windows Xp Pro 64 |

brand-wise i dont know which is better, they're probably all about the same. but the best processor is the athlon64 3400+ in the compaq by far. the only issue with the compaq is that the gfx card leaves a lot to be desired. im assuming its similar to the gf4 mx series (which are junk). you'd definately want to replace it. however, the a64 3400+ is a very good gaming processor, and would be a good candidate especially since you like to play games other than fs2004. if im remembering the benchmarks correctly, the a64 3400+ is faster than the 2.8 and 3.0ghz p4's by a significant margin. i have a a64 3500+ in my desktop, which is barely faster than the 3400+ (if at all), and it hauls.but the issue with the compaq is that for games like silent hunter III and IL2, you're definately going to want a beefy gfx card.can you get the compaq and upgrade the gfx card yourself? does compaq have upgrade options on their website? if this is absolutely not an option and youre going to be stuck with this gf4 card in the compaq, then i'd consider one of the other machines.

sorry, i dont think my post was very helpful. i dont think you can upgrade laptop video cards very easily. i'd go with the dell, nice little quick processor and a gfx card actually designed for gaming. good balance.

I've got a Dell D800 1.7 that works great. I love it as a laptop and use it pretty much exclusively for all my computing, including FS.Thomas