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Gaming on ACER Aspire One

Sunday, 11. October 2009, 16:40:23

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I've been playing with Aspire One for few days and this little kiddo is actually quite powerful.
So i've decided to test games on it and build a list of games that work fine.
Native resolution (1024x600) used when possible, otherwise the highest selectable lower resolution is used instead. The list applies to Acer Aspire One with Atom 1,6GHz, 1GB of RAM and Windows XP SP3!
The list will be updated when i try more games or when my great readers submit info about games that are not yet listed. If you've tested a game that is not yet listed, let me know and i'll add it. :smile:

LAST LIST UPDATE: 2009/10/11

GAMES PLAYABLE ON ACER ASPIRE ONE:
4x4 Evolution (all set to max)
Aliens vs Predator Gold (all set to max)
Aliens vs Predator 2 (all set to max)
C&C:Generals (all set to low)
C&C:Red Alert 2 - Yuri's Revenge (all set to max)
C&C:Red Alert 2 (all set to max)
C&C:Renegade (all set to max)
C&C:Tiberian Sun (all set to max)
Call of Duty (all set to low)
Carmageddon 2 (all set to max)
Croc 2 (all set to max)
Dangerous Waters (all set to medium or high)
Dark Reign:The Future of War
Diablo
Diablo 2
Duke Nukem:Manhattan Project (all set to max, use DirectX mode)
Dungeon Siege (all set to max)
Dungeon Siege 2 (use default settings)
Dungeon Keeper Gold (works in normal mode, Direct3D doesn't work)
EARTH 2150 (all set to max)
EMPEROR:Battle for Dune (all set to max)
F-22 Raptor (all set to max)
Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy (all set to max)
FEAR Combat (all set to low, small levels with not many players)
Flatout (all set to low, slightly lower framerate)
Grand Theft Auto 3 (all set to max, just disable frame sync, frame limit and trails)
Grand Theft Auto:Vice City (all set to max, just disable frame sync, frame limit and trails)
Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas (all set to low)
Gun (all set to max except textures)
Half-Life (all set to max, use Direct3D)
Hidden & Dangerous Deluxe (all set to max)
Hitman:Codename 47 (all set to max)
Hitman 2:Silent Assassin (all set to max)
Hitman:Contracts (all set to max)
KISS - Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child (all set to max)
Max Payne (all set to max)
Max Payne 2 (all set to max)
MechWarrior 3 (all set to max)
Midtown Madness (all set to max)
Midtown Madness 2 (all set to max)
Moto Racer (all set to max, screen has to be set to 16bit)
Moto Racer 2 (all set to max, works only with this PATCH, music has to be muted)
Moto Racer 3 (all set to max)
Motocross Madness (all set to max)
Motocross Madness 2 (all set to max)
NFS:Hot Pursuit 2 (all set to one level lower than max)
NFS:Porsche 2000 (all set to max)
NFS2 (all set to max)
NFS3:Hot Pursuit (all set to max, works with my Vista patch)
Quake 2 (all set to max)
Quake 3 Arena (all set to max)
Project IGI (all set to max)
Rally Championship 2000 (all set to max, may crash with certain audio settings)
Re-Volt (all set to max)
Return to Castle Wolfenstein (all set to High)
Serious Sam: The First Encounter (all set to normal/medium/standard)
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter (all set to normal/medium/standard, use Direct3D)
Soldier of Fortune (all set to max)
Soldier of Fortune 2:Double Helix (use auto detected settings and 800x600)
Superbikes 2001 (set compatibility mode to WIn98/Me, all set to max)
Starcraft
Starcraft:Brood Wars
Starsiege (all set to max, use OpenGL)
Star Trek:Armada (all set to max, problems with sound and music)
Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2 - Jedi Outcast (all set to max, disable complex shadows)
SWAT 4 (all set to low, slightly lower framerate)
System Shock 2 (all set to max, requires latest patch and -lgntforce switch)
The Sims (all set to max)
The Sims 2 (all set to low, expect longer loading times)
Thief 2: The Metal Age (all set to max)
Thief:The Dark Project (all set to max)
Tomb Raider 2 (all set to max)
Tomb Raider 3 (all set to max)
Tom Clancy's: Ghost Recon (all set to max, disable all shadows)
Unreal 2:The Awakening (all set to high, disable detail actors to boost framerate in firefights)
Unreal Tournament 2003 (all set to Normal)
Unreal Tournament 2004 (all set to Normal)
Unreal Tournament 99 (all set to max)
V-Rally 2:Expert Edition (all set to max)
Warzone 2100 (all set to max)
Warcraft 3:Reign of Chaos (all set to max)
Warlords Battlecry 3 (all set to max)
Worms 3D (all set to max, not that there is much to set lol)

GAMES THAT DO NOT WORK:
Age of Mythology (doesn't work)
Area 51 (Midway free full version, framerate too low)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (GPU doesn't support Shader Model 3.0)
Blood 2: The Chosen (main menu screen flickers and is hard to use)
BloodRayne (GMA950 doesn't support hardware Vertex Shaders, OpenGL crashes)
Burnout Paradise Ultimate Box (GPU doesn't support Shader Model 3.0 error)
CounterStrike:Source (too slow even on lowest settings)
Crashday (DirectX 9 device fails to initiate)
Crysis (too slow even on lowest settings)
Crysis Warhead (too slow even on lowest settings)
Dead Space (cannot initialize display hardware)
Defense Grid:The Awakening (too slow even on lowest settings)
Doom 3 (too slow even on lowest settings)
Far Cry (too slow even on lowest settings)
Half-Life 2 series (too slow even on lowest settings)
i-Fluid (too slow even on lowest settings)
Need for Speed:Underground 1 (too slow even on lowest settings)
Need for Speed:Underground 2 (too slow even on lowest settings)
Need for Speed:Most Wanted (too slow even on lowest settings)
Need for Speed:Carbon (too slow even on lowest settings)
Need for Speed:Shift (crashes on startup)
Painkiller (doesn't start, DirectX 9 errors)
Painkiller:Battle from Hell (doesn't start, DirectX 9 errors)
C&C:Red Alert 3 (too slow even on lowest settings)
C&C:Red Alert 3:Uprising (too slow even on lowest settings)
Serious Sam 2 (doesn't start, black screen)
SWAT3 (crashes, patch 1.6+ results in wrong CD inserted error)
STALKER:Shadow of Chernobyl (all set to low, too slow for me, but it works)
The Settlers 2:10th Anniversary (nothing happens when you start the game, no error messages)
The Suffering (Midway free full version, display device fails to initialize)
Trackmania Nations Forever (too slow even on lowest settings)
Unreal Tournament 3 (kernel32.dll error on UT3 start)

ACER Aspire One incoming!NVIDIA inventing hot water. 5 times in a row!

Comments

Anonymous 27. February 2009, 10:32

Anonymous writes:

Im putting max payne on there now!
thanks

Anonymous 13. March 2009, 08:41

Anonymous writes:

I want to buy this laptop and play some simulator games like Falcon 4.0 and some others sims. Can you test some simulator games on the ACER Aspire One?

rejzor 13. March 2009, 11:34

Ok, i'll test Falcon 4.0 demo today, to see how it works.

rejzor 13. March 2009, 14:19

Ok, just one problem. Only demo that i could find out is packed in the most ridiculous way i could find.
First i had to dig up 2 separate parts, but now both fail to extract for some reason. If you can provide me or point me to some other demo of Falcon 4.0, i'm unable to test it for you. Sorry :frown:

Anonymous 13. March 2009, 16:06

wondrs_cz writes:

also Warcraft 3 (all set to max) :)

Anonymous 13. March 2009, 18:03

SN1P3R808 writes:

Thanks for trying to test Falcon 4.0 for me. Can you try Dangerous waters demo. Here's the link to the demo. http://www.sonalystscombatsims.com/dangerous_waters/demo.html

Also try Lock-On demo. Link http://www.fileplanet.com/130891/130000/fileinfo/Lock-On:-Modern-Air-Combat-Demo

rejzor 14. March 2009, 06:19

Dangerous Waters works pretty well. Tried it with insane settings and everything checked and the 3D part was still running pretty well, though you could see the framerate isn't all that high. But if you only disable dynamic shadows, framerate jumps by 10-15fps!

Lock On on the other hand failed to run for some reason.
The game started, i could hear intro sound or music and then it just drops back to desktop. Could be just a problem with my system or drivers, can't say for sure.

Anonymous 15. March 2009, 02:22

SN1P3R808 writes:

Hey thanks for testing them out. I really wanted to buy this laptop to just play Dangerous Waters but I've seen some other simulator games to play on it. I've used today a office max demo of this laptop and wow it's looks real nice and I love the display. Clear LCD images A+ I want a black color one. Best Buy has them with the 120GB hard drive for $300. I just wanted to only play some simulator games on it. I'll keep checking back on how other games playes with this laptop. =)

Anonymous 15. March 2009, 21:41

SN1P3R808 writes:

Hi On your list I see F22 Raptor. Is it the Tom Clancy's : Hawx F-22 Raptor game?

rejzor 15. March 2009, 22:09

No. HAWX is the game of its own. F-22 Raptor is another one. Quite old one.
One of the first F-22 games.

Anonymous 23. March 2009, 15:20

KotonKandy writes:

Do you know if Everquest will work on this cutie?
I would like to play EQ again, and I'm getting one of these netbooks in 2 days.


Koton

Anonymous 29. March 2009, 15:36

Anonymous writes:

does the resident evil games such as re1 and re2 using ps emulator, re code veronica using ps2 emulator and the pc version of re4 work on the acer aspire one.

rejzor 29. March 2009, 17:08

You can forget about emulators. Maybe by emulating SNES and N64 games.
But even N64 games will probably run pretty bad.

Anonymous 30. March 2009, 05:47

Anonymous writes:

how about half-life 1 and 2.


and what do you think of streammygame.com, do you really think people can stream games over the broadband to their netbook.

Anonymous 30. March 2009, 10:33

SN1P3R808 writes:

Hey the list is looking great! I getting my AAO this week. It's black with 160GB HD. Can't wait. Hey Rainbow six RS and MOH: AA works great. Gunship! and Operations Flashpoint works great also. I bought these game to play on the AAO as soon I get it. Hey can you play these games without having to use a CD Rom drive once it's downloaded in the AAO hard drive?

rejzor 30. March 2009, 10:34

Half-Life 1 should work, Half-Life 2 does work, but framerate is very very low. By forcing it to run in DX7 mode and by lowering hidden settings, it should work decent. But don't expect too much. I've also tried CS:S but framerate was 2 frames per minute lol. Regardless of what i tried with autoexec.

Streaming games from server should work fairly well, only downside i that you need another more powerful system to act as server and run actual games while on AA1, you'll only see video stream from that server PC.

Anonymous 30. March 2009, 14:50

Anonymous writes:

does doom 3 and farcry work on the aspire one. i have seen some farcry gameplay videos on youtube using the aspire one.

anyway great list!

rejzor 30. March 2009, 19:15

Doom 3 works but framerate is below anything playable. Same goes to Far Cry.
Maybe i should make another list with tested games that don't work too well.

Anonymous 31. March 2009, 09:05

SN1P3R808 writes:

Thanks for the info. Do you play games on the AAO with a disc drive? If so does the battery life shoten?

rejzor 31. March 2009, 17:34

No. I'm using Alcohol 52% for virtual drive and just mount CD/DVD images.
Can't say for battery. I mostly use it on AC, when on battery i usually just browse the net or listen to music.

Anonymous 1. April 2009, 13:31

Anonymous writes:

what about quake 4?

rejzor 1. April 2009, 14:53

Haven't tried it but since it's based on Doom 3 engine i'd say it's too slow to be playable.

Anonymous 3. April 2009, 17:31

Anonymous writes:

how about chronicles of riddick escape from butcher bay. it is not that demanding, will it work?

rejzor 3. April 2009, 19:04

The engine is Doom 3 class, so no joy there either i'd say.
You can try to run the demo but since graphics are like Doom 3 on steroids, i don't think you'll get any useful framerate out of it.

Anonymous 4. April 2009, 11:27

Anonymous writes:

hey does civilization 4 and age of empire 3 work on this netbook?

Anonymous 8. April 2009, 17:57

Anonymous writes:

You may add Age of Mythology to the list of playable games on the AAO. Just start the game in Diagnostics->Safe video from the start menu and select 800x600!

Anonymous 9. April 2009, 07:05

Anonymous writes:

Oh,and you can run the game in full res 1024x600 by adding to the shortcut xres=1024 yres=600, like "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Mythology\aom.exe" xres=1024 yres=600

rejzor 9. April 2009, 13:23

Got to try this one again i guess.

Anonymous 10. April 2009, 09:49

Anonymous writes:

hey can i play the lego games like indiana jones and batman on the acer aspire one. it has got minimum requirements which can run on any system.

Anonymous 18. April 2009, 00:58

Digital Snape writes:

As to the question of Everquest 2, I have it loaded, and it starts but seems to slow to be playable - with everything turned as low as it can go. Mine has the 160gb hd and 1.5 gigs of ram memory upgrade. Perhaps more ram would help. Unfortunate too because WoW was working OK with some lowering of settings and tweaking.

Dsnape

rejzor 18. April 2009, 01:35

You can try GMABooster to speed up graphics a bit.

Anonymous 28. April 2009, 18:14

Anonymous writes:

Does Diablo II work on the Aspire One? I really want the game for vacations when the internet doesn't work or when I'm bored.

Anonymous 28. April 2009, 20:24

Anonymous writes:

I really want Warcraft III for the same reasom as the guy above me, does it work?

rejzor 28. April 2009, 20:47

Diablo should work (just as any other 2D strategy).
Considering C&C Generals are playable on it i'd say Warcraft 3 shouldn't be a problem. But i'll test both as soon as possible.

Anonymous 30. April 2009, 18:48

Anonymous writes:

I would like to know also if Civ IV will work.

Anonymous 1. May 2009, 04:19

Anonymous writes:

i also own one of these computers
add:
Garrysmod (dx7 all on med-low)
Age of epires 2-3 (all on high runs perfect)
Battlefield 2 (all on low)
Nintendo 64 emulation and all older systems
Hl2 EP2 (saame as gmod aspire one loves source engine 2007)
Team fortress classic (all on highest)
Hl1+expantions (all on high)
Oblivion (old oblivion patch with all on low or off about 25fps)
Crysis (runs fine in dx9 10-20fps perfect sound quality)
Sims 2 (all on high but textures)

Operating systems :D
Linux (95% of all them ubuntu 9.04 runs great)
Leopard
Tiger
Panther
Windows XP
windows Vista (uber slow)
Windows 2000 (i recommend)
windows 98 (lol sucks)
basically it.

IF YOU BLUE SCREEN OF DESTH WITH HL2 DONT WORRY ITS A GLITCH IN THE SOURCE ENGINE WITH DX7 6.0 (6.1 works great) and 10 for some reason.

Hope i helped :D

Anonymous 3. May 2009, 22:35

Anonymous writes:

Does world of warcraft work?

Anonymous 6. May 2009, 03:30

Anonymous writes:

i bought acer aspire one screen 1024 x 600 / atom 1.6 / 1 giga ram /hd 160 gb , i test
Conter Strike Source ( medium ) works great
Doom 3 (all low) unplayable
Hal Life 2 strangely crashes initializing memory read problem

rejzor 6. May 2009, 05:20

CS:S on medium? No way. Not on GMA950. It was even half playable on Intel X3000 at 640x480 with everything to Low when i had GA-965G-DS3 mobo.
Tried it few times, even applied all sorts of hacks and tweaks, no real difference.

Anonymous 7. May 2009, 03:07

Anonymous writes:

then run in dx7 and only play on untextured maps

and yes world of warcraft with WOTLK gets 30pfs avrage

rejzor 7. May 2009, 05:12

DX7 with non textured maps. That must be enjoyable...

Anonymous 7. May 2009, 19:51

Anonymous writes:

does the orange box work? it looks awesome.

Anonymous 11. May 2009, 16:14

Anonymous writes:

does spore work? what about mysims?

Anonymous 15. May 2009, 19:57

Anónimo writes:

What about Age of empires 3??

I've tried many times and it just wont work.

Could you let me know if you can make it work please?

Thanks!

Anonymous 17. May 2009, 20:41

Anonymous writes:

will age ever work

Anonymous 9. June 2009, 05:45

Sam Murray writes:

Hi, nice work with the site, hope you're still responding to comments.
I've extracted my Red Alert 2 .exe archive and when I run ra2.exe with wine, the game chugs and runs very slowly. Basically unplayable.
Could this be a dodgy xorg.conf or because I'm running wine 1.0?
Cheers
Sam (gelugpa [(aht)] gmail.com)

rejzor 9. June 2009, 06:06

I didn't make it clear that this list only applies to AA1 with Windows XP. I'll fix that. Sorry.

Anonymous 9. June 2009, 23:35

Seb writes:

I love this little machine, here's some I've tested to add to your list.

Works:
Dungeon Siege 2
Grant Theft Auto Vice City
Superbikes 2001 (Compatibility Mode Win98, Turn Mipmaps On)
Alien vs Predator 2
Gun

Doesn't Work:
Trackmania Nations Forever (Too Slow)
Serious Sam 2 (Won't Run)

rejzor 10. June 2009, 06:08

What graphics settings were used for those games that worked?
Also what settings were used for Trackmania?

This is important because some games (like SWAT4) work fine, but you have to set graphics to minimum for comfortable gameplay.
And there are games that do work, but are just way too slow even with settings set to lowest possible. And there are games that just don't work at all. They usually don't even start or they do but they just hang with black screen or something similar.
Just look how i rate games performance and write t down in a similar way :smile:

Anonymous 10. June 2009, 23:53

Anónimo writes:

age of empires works, but you need to change some settings. http://forum.agecommunity.com/forums/thread/817670.aspx

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