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See Call of Duty 4 running on the Compaq 311 netbook

by Julian Prokaza on Friday 18 September 2009 Comment

We’ve yet to review a netbook that uses nVidia’s Ion graphics chipset, but Notebooks.com has one in its hands and has shot a video that shows how well-suited it is to gaming.

The clip shows the new Compaq Mini 311 playing Call of Duty 4 and, in short, it seems to run pretty well. The visual settings are set to low, but the game still manages to run at 30fps, despite the netbook’s paltry Intel Atom N280 (1.66GHz) processor. Impressive stiff.

More details — and the video — after the cut.

The video echoes our own test of the ASUS N10 running CoD 4 last year, but that Atom-powered laptop could only manage around 15fps with its nVidia GeForce 9300M graphics.

The nVidia Ion graphics chip also speeds up video encoding — something few people would want to attempt on a netbook. Notebooks.com captured this on video too. The clips the Compaq Mini 311 to be around five times faster when converting an HD clip to a portable format using Windows 7’s built-in transcoding tool, compared to a Lenovo S12 with integrated graphics.

So, it looks like netbooks with nVidia Ion graphics will finally address the common complaints about any netbook — 3D graphics and video playback. Look out for a Mobile Computer review of the Compaq Mini 311 soon.

[ Notebooks.com]

Originally published on www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk, now incorporated into Broadband Genie

 

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