Computer demons

[Tomato]

Ok, so... I've been running a Dell Inspiron 1501 that, quite frankly, I would like nothing more then to smash into a wall and dance upon it's evil, underpowered, and virus-ridden husk.

I am not kidding. My parents got me this piece of crap laptop to "run Word." This is particularly irritating because I had paid for a perfectly good graphics card only to have it taken away and replaced with piece-o-crap integrated card. I'm trying to get a degree in Game design, I need something that has the power to run X-men Legends 2 without dragging at the lowest possible setting >.>

Unfortunately, the only advice I've gotten at home is from individuals who have no realistic concept of the power necessary for running 3d work, or others who I don't know well enough to trust their opinions. I'm not exactly a genius eithor, but It doesn't take a genius to see that a machine that barely runs 3 year old games and doesn't run newer games at all (like Web of Shadows, grah) isn't going to cut it.

I'm currently working a minimum wage job during school breaks so I'm not exactly rolling in money, but I'm not paying for much else outside of food (biking to class=good for retaining moneys). As a general "I have no idea on prices" price range, I'd say one to two thousand, but if I have to store up more I can. I'm just looking for a solid gaming laptop with more than a 55 GB Hard Drive and a gaming card which might last me a year or so.

[GogglesPizanno]

Im totally out of the loop on technology of laptops these days, but I got a dell Inspirion about 3 years ago for like $950 and it still performs pretty decently. I cant run Gears of War or anything like that, but I can play FFvTR on highest settings smoother than my desktop, and it runs 3d apps just fine.... and this is on a mid range laptop from 3 years ago. So I imagine at your price point, you should be able to get something pretty decent these days.

I'd look at Dell as I have had really good luck with them. They offer gaming laptops, but I have found that some of their other lines can be just as powerful minus the extra cost of having the fancy "game rig."
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1530?c=us&cs=19&l=en&ref=lthp&s=dhs

Dell also partnered with Alienware for some gaming laptops that look to be just in your price range. I haven't used alienware but they have a solid reputation (or last I heard they did) in gaming circles.
http://www.alienware.com/products/M17-notebook.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-M17&Subcode=SKU-DEFAULT

You might get advice form some of the mac users about maybe getting a powerbook (due to their really good student discounts) and using parallels to run Windows. If the performance is there, having dual OS options might be a nice feature in addition to the handful of nice Mac only software.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/education_routing/

[Epimethee]

The latest Macbooks finally have decent video cards, but nothing to write home about (Nvidia 9400M). The general consumer price is $1000; for twice the price, you get the low-end Macbook Pro, which, among other things, sports a better graphic card (Nvidia 9600M GT). If your one big focus is gaming, you'll probably get quite a better deal from a PC clone maker such as Dell. (Although, personally, I'll take the Mac anytime: between the much more refined hardware and software experience, the absence of virii (for now), the versatility of having Mac OS, Unix core and Windows/Linux (under dual booting, virtualization or Wine-based simulation)... Windows machines just feel like going from an Aston-Martin to a Chevette – both do the same basic job, but one makes it more enjoyable than the other. /rant)

However, if you want good 3D performance for you money, do you really need to go the laptop route? You'll get a much better graphic card, plus upgradability with a desktop machine for less money (and you can keep the laptop of torment for school). Unless you're ready to enter a game design cursus this year?

BTW, you certainly already know this, but if you're computer is constantly infected by virii, you probably have hidden processes running in the background; this alone can slow the fastest machine to an unusable crawl.

[Tomato]

Meh, I'd love to go the "Desktop X Laptop" route, but between issues of space, and the abhorant fact that I'd need to email everything to myself (demon laptop is infected with the "USB not recognised" ickiness that's been going around on XP computers lately...) makes it terribly difficult to utilize a desktop to it's fullest extent. Plus, I'm finishing up my general courses this semestre, so I'll be taking even more game related courses. I need a computer I can work on this stuff with, even when I'm going home for holidays. And unfortunately, this monster... it isn't it. Just a semi-runthrough of my problems...

-no USB support anymore, for whatever bloody reason
-55 GB hard drive, of which I have (given the sizes of programs I need for class) 8 GB free at best for misc purposes. Portal, on it's own, takes 4gb, I believe. I can't remember though, as I had to delete my copy for space >.>
-DVD drive is so bad that if I run a movie file from it, will cause windows to not respond until I give up and remove the dvd.
-ATI card which, because ATI didn't know what they were doing(apparently), had drivers that caused my computer to crash randomly until I reinstalled them without the "control center"
-As mentioned before, I cannot run a game like XML2 without it slowing to a crawl (on minimum settings, mind) every time an effect occurs onscreen.
-Virii/Spyware/computer-damning-bugs. Oh Lord, despite getting some of the best antivirus software by all counts, despite reinstalling and reformatting this demon so many times it would make a sane man weep, I still keep getting problems... to be fair, the main recurring one I have since solved, but I still have ended up reinstalling windows even within the last month for some reason or another.

Edit: Sorry for all those who read my incomplete post before... the wireless router died while I was posting the reply. Luckily there's wireless at the college >P