Uhh, you really need to post up your own specifications for any of us to get an idea of how it'd run. The windows perfomance index thingy is pretty pointless in some respects.
Download this and run it: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/ If it says you have intel integrated video, which I'm guessing is what you have, you won't be able to play any modern 3D games. You usually get shafted with laptops.
The Geforce 8600M GT isn't bad relative to the kind of crap you could get stuck with in a laptop. It's actually quite decent, and for 2007 it was one of the better laptop cards. Update the drivers and you should be fine. Borderlands doesn't look like anything too spectacular graphically so I'm guessing you'll be able to pull off medium settings. In console terms it's probably about on par with the RSX in the PS3. http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us More about your card: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-8600M-GT.3986.0.html
Yeah I can play Oblivion on medium settings with ease but that game is 5 years old so maybe that's no surprise. Pay day tomorrow so I might see what all this steam malarkey is all about.
You could play source based games with that pretty well. The Orange Box, Counter-Strike Source, and the Left 4 Dead games would be a good way to start off your steam experience.
I've been meaning to get around to buying left 4 dead. Maybe getting it off steam wouldn't be a bad idea. It'll probably lead to me needing to buy a beastly pc though, which I can't afford right now.
Why? L4D and L4D2 will run on practically any half-way decent computer made since 2004. They're source engine based. And the source engine is about as well optimized as it gets. You could probably max them out or come pretty close to it on your laptop. My X800 could run source based stuff on really high settings and that was a card from 2004. Valve are known as pretty much the best developer in existence because they can design an engine that both looks and runs great, unlike those assclowns over at Crytek.
I didn't struggle with the difficulty. They make it completely obvious what the level of the mission is compared to your character's level, so that's a non-factor. However, since you played the SP, you know that you repeatedly return to the same maps for the various missions (side or otherwise), and there is no real variety in terms of the Skags on those maps. The placement is the same. Their attack is always the same. The only thing that changes is that you start to see larger groups of Skags and more powerful Skags, which just makes the repetitiveness even more tedious. Walk to point A. Skag fight. Walk to point B. Skag fight. Walk to point C. Skag fight. Walk to point D. Skag fight. Pick up one of the quest items. Walk to point E. Skag fight. etc. etc. Rinse, repeat.
I meant that this could be the beginning of me taking PC gaming as a serious option as opposed to what I've done my whole life which is play PC games only when consoles are unavailable. Which would then lead to me having to buy a goo gaming PC.
@alterego: I see your point but I think a lot of games suffer from repetition when you break them down. I enjoyed the hectic combat so lots of it didn't bother me. I was reading the difficulty thing from you looking for cheats for Moe/Marley - that mission was fine for me but I left it a while. I think this an excellent game but it's not got a strong narrative nor does it feature a rigid structure based on set piece moments like most modern FPS games. I loved the constant improvement and development side of the game so it always felt like I was making progress. If that sort of thing doesn't appeal then I can see why someone wouldn't like it. For me, it's easily been one of the stand out games this generation. You should get around to buying a PS3 and I'll join you for a game. GET TO IT.
@ Armadeadn Like have bin said, most of the Valve games you will be able run very decent. In 2004 my 9600XT (very old, slower then 8600GT) could run HL2 and Source at the highest settings @ 1280x1024. Games like L4D are based on the same engine so you wouldnt have any problems with that. You should try L4D/L4D2, Portal, CSS, and all the HL2 + episodes games if you havent. When you have HL2 you can download Goldeneye Source for free aswel, its pretty nice. On a side note, if your not so pro in PC's, you could try running this program for once http://www.yamicsoft.com/ Download the Windows 7 Manager version and do the optimization wizard, this combined with updated drivers and you should be fine for sure. Edit: For sure try Synergy aswel, its a modification for the whole HL2 series, you can play it all coop with your friends (or strangers, less fun). Its free, just like Goldeneye, theres tons of mods you should try.
I enjoyed the hectic combat in missions like the Safe Room, but that was because there was variety to the way the human combatants attack. Imagine if every class of the human NPC's simply stormed right at you like the Psycho's...how dull would that be? That was the problem with the Skags for me. It just seemed strange to me that the same game designers that emphasized such a wide variety in weapons resorted to such monotonous routines for the missions. I'll be paying Moe/Marly another visit though. It sounds like the Skag fighting concludes once you finish Part 1 of the storyline.
The skag style of fight does remain, just so you know. Different creatures but it's still part of the game. You definitely get more human combat later on; substantially so on some missions.
hmmm.. I wonder if the console version of moe and marley was easier or did you play that quest on single player, monsly? it was pretty brutal on the pc when I played with my friend. I know the game difficulty kicks up a notch when more players enter the game. I felt like that boss fight took us like 15min.
I didn't find it too bad on single player either as the hunter and the soldier. One of them was defiantly harder than the other but that was probably related to the element I was using against him/it. On multiplayer with Monsly and Chi they were a doddle.
I didn't find that mission a problem in single player or multi; probably easier in multi by a long way. Maybe it's easier with the soldier/siren class but a little strategy and being a decent level with the right weapons should make it easy enough.
the game is chock full of DRM too afaik. But mostly only the expansion packs... and only 2 of the 4 if I remember right. The best 2 though, of coarse.
I just did moe and marley again with my friend. this time i was the siren and he was that berserker dude. took forever again and i almost ran out of ammo. i forgot how much of a pain in the ass the game is without a gunner. we ran into 2 badass skags at a time a few times and we had to run back to the beginning to ammo back up.