Laptop anyone?

#1 Trade the GF for an expensive laptop!

#2 A lot of things run on torque (even my computer!!!) I think the problem would be if it would be powerful enough to run the game you are making.

#3 Go ahead and get a laptop, go downstairs and talk with her while your eyes are fixed on the screen. I can already tell you right now that your not gonna get any work done and she's gonna be pissed at you because your not paying enough attention to her. And when something pops up on screen like a problem that grabs the rest of your attention, all your gonna hear from her is "...And you won't believe what Cathy did wheh gjer cbo grapes...d fue..dhivnb car blah blah pencil fhcuoe.........." and boy are you gonna be in it when she realizes your not paying attention to her. Phrases like "uh huh, yeah, say what?, and no she didn't!" only work if your at least half way listening.

The easiest thing to do will probably be to put some pants on and get her to understand (easy...yeah right!) you need time to concentrate on your development project. As long as you spend time with her, she won't have any solid reason to complain. But she will anyway. Time with your girlfriend should be spent with her, other living creatures, and objects she is fond of like maybe food and TV for example. Time with your project should be spent working on it and nothing else. I would strongly advise against mixing the two. That's my bit of relationship advice on a game development forum.
-Ajari-

#4 I have been pretty happy with my Gateway MX6425. It has a X200m Radeon for the GFX card. I also get around 40+ fps on most spots on the Stronghold level running TSE. So I can imagine that TGE would be less graphically intensive. I would recommend something with atleast a somewhat decent GFX card. This X200m has been fine for me. It's not something that I would want to play on for hours, but it lets me run and debug code on it. I bought it from CircuitCity for about a grand. They were having a rebate on it for 200 or something, so I think it was running around 800-900 bucks. Hope that helps..

#5 I'm quite happy with my Applie iBook G4 12 inch. Apple Store sells them refurbished for $700 now. Runs Torque just fine and it is a great computer to have.

But if you do 3D art with non-open softwre, you might be a ltitle disapointed.

#6 Thanks for all the info people (specially about keeping the GF happy ;-))

Pleased to know that the X200M is ok as Ive seen it on a lot of cheap(ish) laptops.

Thanks - Gary

#7 In my experience, laptops even at the same specs as a desktop run MUCH slower on 3D apps... Guess its just the architecture, but I would either not invest in a cheap laptop and get one more pricey with more ram etc.. or dev on a desktop....even a super cheap desktop is better imo. Once the game gets a little more involved than the standard TGE demo, you will see the laptop will have a hard time keeping up. If you do still get a laptop, make sure its not shared video memory!

Again this is just with my experience...others may have had better luck..

#8 My laptop runs torque - it has Intel Extream Graphics Moble Edition. It doesn't get much worse then that.