Cheapest laptop to play Far Cry 2 on high

[spaceconvoy]

Hi, I'm looking for the cheapest possible laptop that will give me over 30fps on Far Cry 2 with high settings and 2x AA. Here's my pro-forma:

1. What is your budget?
$800 max, would really like to get as close to $600 as possible

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
No bigger than 15.6"... if there's a 14" laptop that can do what I want, that would be idea, but I don't think it's possible.

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Standard 1366x768 (in a perfect world, I'd prefer anti-glare, but that's probably not going to happen either)

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
N/A

5. How much battery life do you need?
Not important, but obviously more is better.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Yes, see above

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
AutoCAD and Adobe CS suite

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
Not really important, anything over 120GB would work

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
N/A

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
1-2 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Not really important, but it's be nice to have a dual layer DVD burner

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Doesn't matter, but I like Lenovo

13. What country do you live in?
USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I would also love a chicklet-style keyboard, but price is the overriding factor here.

Thanks for the help!

 

[spaceconvoy]

I found the answer myself, if anyone's curious: HP dv6 quad edition with A8-3500M and Radeon HD 6755G2 dual graphics can be found refurbished for a little over $600.

 

[WR2]

How well does it play Far Cry 2?

 

[ikesmasher]

Refurbished? there are new ones (different brands) for around $600...but whatever.

 

[spaceconvoy]

How well does it play Far Cry 2?

I can play with DirectX 10, all settings High with 2x AA, no problems. I have no idea what the actual FPS is, but the only time it's not perfectly smooth is when I move my head around really fast... feels like it's over 30 FPS at least.

One weird issue is after playing for a long time, sometimes it will start stuttering. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it has to do with excess heat? I don't know much about computers, but it seems to be kicking out a LOT of heat, compared to my last laptop. Then again, the bottom stays relatively cool, so it seems like it's doing a good job removing most of it through the fan.

The screen sucks though, and the contrast is awful, which makes playing at night (in the game) much harder than on my last laptop... but my last laptop had a premium anti-glare screen. Now I wish I had spent the extra money and gotten the 1080p screen, but then again, pushing those extra pixels might slow everything down.... Decisions, decisions.

 

[spaceconvoy]

I forgot to mention I upgraded the stock memory to 8Gb @ 1600MHz, so that might make a difference. And all performance described above was with only the 6750M enabled, since Crossfire seems to make things worse. I updated my drivers with whatever ATI has on their website, but maybe I'm missing some special Crossfire driver?